


Precipitous

by mimsical



Series: 2020 Exchanges, Bangs, and Challenges [5]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Canonical Past Character Death, F/M, Season/Series 08, identity crisis, jaime make good decisions challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:28:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27144514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mimsical/pseuds/mimsical
Summary: "And then what? This all ends in flames, everything we did, for nothing?”
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Series: 2020 Exchanges, Bangs, and Challenges [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1856839
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18
Collections: Fic In A Box





	Precipitous

**Author's Note:**

  * For [coaldustcanary](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coaldustcanary/gifts).



Brienne stood in the doorway, no less imposing for being naked, and her stare pinned Jaime in place like a butterfly under a careless hand. “You’re going,” she said, and her tone was so strangely flat that he felt it like a drop in his stomach. “After all this, you’re leaving. You know she won’t win. The war is already lost, and you’d choose death for your sister over — forget me, Jaime!” The passion flared back into her voice, and the sense of a world off-kilter lifted enough for Jaime to settle himself, still half-clothed, and fold his arms. “You could have a whole life, years to live and — and find who you are without being only half of a whole. You’ll tear Tyrion to pieces if you leave, and he’ll choose you over the Dragon Queen, and then what? This all ends in flames, everything Lady Sansa has accomplished, everything _we_ did, for nothing?” 

Jaime squeezed his eyes shut in the face of her accusations. “I can’t let her die alone. If I can do anything — smuggle her out, maybe, I don’t know!” He passed a hand over his face, exhausted and feeling misery sink back into his marrow. All this, indeed, and here he still stood. Leaving. “All I see when I close my eyes is Daenarys setting her aflame — burning her and smiling while her flesh melts from her bones — I have to be there. She’s all alone; there’s no one left. Father — her children — all gone, Brienne. I can’t bear to leave her with nothing.” 

“You’ll throw your life away.” 

In the condemnation in her words, he heard his father’s voice, echoing maddeningly in the hollows of his mind. “Maybe this is just how it is,” he said quietly. “All I am. I was never going to be anything more. My life has been hers all along, and there was never anything more for me.” 

Brienne stared him down until he reluctantly met her gaze. “That,” she said, “is _not true.”_

“Brienne — ”

“You’re more than this, Jaime.” 

“I’m _not._ ” 

In three strides she crossed the room and seized him by the arm. Jaime thought to resist, but his body did not cooperate, and she dragged him back through the door, kicking it shut behind them, and shoved him back until his legs struck against the bed. 

“Do you _want_ to die like this?” she asked, eyes seeking something on his face that he wasn’t sure was there to find. “Is this how you want things to end? I _know_ this isn’t how you want to be remembered. _I know you._ ”

He jerked his arm free roughly. “Then you should know that there’s nothing to be done,” he snapped. 

The restrained anger and betrayal on her face slowly shifted, and Jaime thought, absurdly, that maybe she’d seen into him and — and that there had been something for her to find. “You’re wrong,” she said. “You don’t want to go. I know you think you do, but you know this isn’t worth it.” 

Jaime opened his mouth, maybe to argue, maybe to shock her with scorn and bitterness to get her out of his path to the door, but she covered it with hers, and the terrifying power of her, so striking, so untainted, pinned him to the spot. 

“Brienne — ” he tried to say, but she pushed him to sit on the bed and stripped his breeches and undershirt away before straddling him. Jaime didn’t resist — moved with her, even, when she pressed him to stretch out flat on the bed. She took his wrist and before he finished registering what she was doing, she was using his belt to bind it in place. “Seven hells!” He tugged on it, but she was damn good with knots, as he knew from miserable experience. “This is absurd.” 

Brienne accepted the accusation with a small shrug. The years had begun to weigh in her face, and he could suddenly see the years of strain and exhaustion there. “So be it. I’m not in the business of letting fools run to their deaths.” 

He was angry, angry and — and — ashamed. Brienne settled back on his hips, and his useless stump settled at his side. Certainly he could have fought, and maybe she would have won, but to get free — he’d have to hurt her. And he didn’t want to, not any more than he wanted to leave Cersei to die alone. 

Not to mention the worst bit. Being handled by her, lying under her — and she was still naked, to boot. Damn it all. 

“Stay,” she said, and suddenly it was a plea. She found his cock under her and pressed back against it, still sticky-slick from earlier, and it only took two shaky rolls of her hips before he slid into her in one slow, delirious movement, sunk to the base in her heat. 

From there, he lost himself a bit. Everything with her was still so new, but somehow easy, despite their unfamiliarity with each other’s bodies. Perhaps it was just the gruelling months together that made it so. It had forged a trust that Jaime couldn’t seem to break away from — and a need for Brienne to not look at him with heartbroken betrayal in her eyes. 

Neither of them managed to climax, Brienne’s movements slowing to a halt when she tried to fight down the tears threatening to fall. Jaime sat up under her, and went to touch her face before remembering that his hand was still bound. Brienne didn’t flinch, though. Of course not. She took his stump in her hands and pressed her wet face to it, shaking slightly as she wept. 

Cersei. Myrcella, still barely more than a child, dead in his arms. Brienne in a pit, only a wooden sword between her and certain death by mauling. 

“It’s not that my life means nothing to me,” he said after a minute, hearing a plea in his own voice. “But Daenerys Targaryen doesn’t bring — swift justice or compassionate mercy, no matter what lines her entourage spout. She’ll take pleasure in seeing Cersei die in agony. You know she will.” 

Brienne bowed her head, slow and tired. “Perhaps. But I have no great skill at judging the merits of kings and queens. I follow Lady Sansa’s lead, as you know.”

“Yes, because Lady Stark is so pleased with Daenerys. Brienne, please understand. I can’t — ” Tommen, pushed to the brink by their own folly. Joffrey’s descent into mad cruelty that had tormented so many. “How can I stand back and let this happen?” 

“How can I stand back and let you?” Her voice was little more than an exhausted sigh. He could see the resignation in her face, the spark in her eyes dimming at the unkindness with which he was repaying her generosity and endless honor. Jaime was sickened by himself. The pretext of desperate sex was all but gone, but Jaime still felt something of that clawing need to be close to her. 

He pulled his arm free from her loose grasp and wrapped it around her back, guiding them both slowly down until they lay side by side once more. Brienne curled her own arm over him in an impulse he understood to the core of his heart. Cersei had spent half their lives pulling away from him whenever he had wanted to hold on tighter. 

Jaime didn’t want to be the cause of such hurt in her. 

“I don’t know what to do,” he confessed into the thick strands of her hair. 

“Then stay,” she said, and Jaime shut his eyes tight, at war with himself as he had been ever since Brienne had first reached into him and touched a part of him he’d barely known was there. To go, to stay. To bow to another mad royal dragon, or to die for a mad cruel queen. To spend a long life with Brienne, to be known for honor after all, to see Tyrion grow to old age, or to hold Cersei in his arms as the last of their world tore itself apart. 

In his heart of hearts, he knew which choice he would make. 


End file.
